


Till They All Come Home

by Quaxo



Category: Captain America, Iron Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-26
Updated: 2013-04-26
Packaged: 2017-12-09 12:57:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/774461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quaxo/pseuds/Quaxo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Nazis won the war and Natasha Stark is building weapons for them.  When Steve is unfrozen, he is given to her as a reward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Till They All Come Home

**Author's Note:**

> A combination of the Iron Man Noir AU and 3490 AU. Need not have read Iron Man Noir to understand, but does contain spoilers. 
> 
> Based off a prompt at the cap_ironman comment fest.
> 
> The "repatriotization" that Natasha describes actually occurred during WWII with Polish children. 
> 
> Untermensch is German for "undesirables" or directly, "sub-human". 
> 
> Sticky moral issues abound.

“Zolpidem. Ethanol. Methylchloride. Ophentonyl.” 

The words sound like they’re being dragged over ground glass… and he can’t help but stare at the woman, Natasha, who has been his captor these past nine months. 

She kneels over Baron Zemo’s body with an unexpected reverence, considering that she had just shot the man moments earlier. He watches as she reaches up to remove the purple mask to reveal a familiar face underneath.

“…Howard Stark,” He breathes. He’d met the man only a few times, but he never would be able to forget one of the men instrumental in Operation: Rebirth.

“Did you know, Captain,” Natasha’s voice is clipped, her German accent adding a harshness that cannot quite hide her distress. “That Baron Zemo is a rank, not a person?” Her fingers trace Stark’s hairline affectionately, her eyes focused on the dead man’s face.

With their faces close together, he can see the resemblance their features – so strong that he wonders why he hadn’t thought of it before: Same hair color, same eyes, same nose… all in a smaller scale and molded to fit a woman’s face. There can be no doubt that Natasha Stauss is Howard Stark’s daughter.

“They inject them with it,” She whispers, caressing the dead man’s cheek. “Those chemicals, and it erases their personalities, their memories, but leaves the intelligence behind – leaves them malleable and without distractions.”

“He’s your father,” He states – it seems stupid saying it out loud, but necessary all the same.

“Yes, Captain. You see now why I could not simply leave this place…” Her eyes close tightly and the light catches on the trace of tears on her eyelashes that refuse to fall. “After America fell, they started purging out the untermensch. Daddy thought he could buy them off… thought our German heritage would protect us…” A sharp, sour laugh escapes from her mouth, “They took me from him – no distractions for the next Baron Zemo – and besides I was too busy being repatriated…”

“They changed my name, sent me to a group home where they beat us if we spoke anything but German. They told me he was dead, told me to forget everything of my life before Germany or I’d end up dead like the others… but I always dreamed that he’d come back – he’d find you and you’d both come storming in and rescue me and all the others…” She leans over to place a kiss on Stark’s forehead, before standing and facing Steve, her face as expressionless as a mask. “I almost got it right, didn’t I?”

“I think it is time you were leaving us, Captain,” She comes to the door of his cell, punching in a code quickly. “You need to find a man called Winter Soldier… he’s a friend of yours, he’ll be able to help you.”

The door swings open, giving him the chance for escape that he’s been waiting for all this time. Free from this room, but are at least 3 guards on this section of the hallway alone. Free from his cell, but still trapped in this bunker with no idea of how to get free.

“You might wish to leave soon, Captain… the explosive devices I planted should be going off in ten minutes, you’ll be want to be well outside the blast radius.”

He’s tempted to go, just fight his way out like he has so many times before, and let her kill herself. She’s a Nazi, part of the inhuman government that has devoured the country he loved. She has been his jailer for the last 9 months, keeping him locked in this prison cell, even though she knows his cause is just. 

He can’t leave her here.

“Come with me.”

“I have the blood of millions of people on my hands, Captain,” Her voice is strident, and self-loathing drips from her tongue like venom. “My story does not end with ‘Happily Ever After’.”

She looks so small, sitting beside her father’s corpse in watch, waiting for her end to come. 

“You can at least try to make amends,” He receives a skeptical look in return, “Besides, I have no idea how to get out of here.”

They barely make it out of the compound ahead of the flames as they envelope the complex in a roar of fire. Watching from a safe distance away as the site as it burns he thinks its as beautiful as any of the fireworks shows that Macy’s used to put on for the 4th of July.

Natasha stands at his side, her face as hard as iron as she watches her father’s massive funeral pyre. Even now he wonders if he did the right thing, bringing her along with him. She is undoubtedly right about all the people she has murdered, he’d seen some of her designs hanging on the wall and knew instantly of their lethal capacity – and he questions whether there is truly any way to receive forgiveness for all the crimes she has committed. Other resistance groups, if he can find them, will probably object to her presence. He should execute her, quietly, swiftly, right now – she’d probably see it as a mercy.

Except she’s probably the only one who knows how to kill Hitler in that fancy metal suit of his. If what she said was true about the krauts’ “repatriation” process, then surely she deserved some small bit of mercy, it was not as if she had joined of her own free will… she expresses regret for her actions, there must be…

He shakes his head, turning away from the still burning wreckage. They need to get as much distance between them and the remains of the base as quickly as possible. Undoubtedly Natasha’s lightshow has attracted the attention of the SS by now, and it would not do to lose their freedom as quickly as they gained it.

Natasha’s guilt and the price of her atonement are something for a court to decide, after the war is won and they are back at home. Until then they both have jobs to do.


End file.
